andy bell

Tommy Robinson has taken time out from his month-long tour of America to remind us that, a year ago, he was in “solitary confinement”.

At the time he was also complaining that his prison regime – he was locked up for contempt of court –  amounted to “mental torture”.

Today he is reflecting that, a year on, it’s been some journey from that to the halls of the US Congress where, this week, he addressed a closed meeting of Republicans.  

It was indeed a year ago and, coincidentally, some thoughts which I wrote up at the time popped up in my Facebook memories today.

So here they are again. A timely reminder of what a shameless liar he really is:

Tommy Robinson doesn’t know the meaning of solitary confinement or ‘mental torture’.

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, governors in British prisons operated an informal and illegal regime of solitary confinement. It was called ‘Long Term Segregation’

Prisoners – usually the troublesome sort but also clever enough not to have actually committed a breach of prison discipline – could legally be confined in solitary, in the prison punishment block, for a maximum of 28 days, in the interests of ‘good order and discipline.’

But when the 28 days expired, they would be shipped out, usually in the middle of the night, to another prison where the 28 day confinement cycle could begin all over again.

Prisoners called it ‘The Ghost Train’.

• They were locked in punishment cells, sometimes strip cells, with no furniture, no bed, only a mattress that was taken out during the day.
• They were in their cells for 23 or 24 hours a day.
• Their food was pushed through the door onto the floor, and they had no human contact at all. None.
• They often had none of their personal possessions as these were frequently in transit following them around the system but never actually arriving.

That’s what you call solitary confinement. That’s what you call ‘mental torture’. It was incredibly damaging psychologically for the prisoners who were put through it.

I made a programme about it for ITV’s World In Action in 1991 and, for a while at least, till they found another way around it, it was stopped.

Now, compare that with the ‘solitary confinement’ and ‘mental torture’ that Tommy ‘Ten Names’ Robinson is being forced to endure at Woodhill Prison which, as described in court today, consists of:

• Three hours out of his cell every day, when he can exercise, use the gym or play recreational games such as pool, and another 2 hours and 45 minutes three times a week when he does painting and decorating work.
• “Significantly more visit time than any other prisoner”, with two hours, four times a week, in a room described as “more informal and comfortable”, where he can take in food he’s bought from the canteen.
• 120 people on his visitors list and 93 visits to date.
• Use of his the phone for four hours a day (and he has made more than 1,250 social calls).
• A television, laptop – on which he receives emails “in their hundreds” – a CD player and a DVD player in his cell.
• A weekly bible session and daily visits from a member of the chaplaincy team and from an NHS doctor or nurse.

In truth, not really much more onerous than living on your own.

And bear in mind, of course, that he is in these conditions at his own request because he says he fears for his safety if he is forced to mix in the general prison population.

A man for whom the word ‘snowflake’ might have been invented.

If you want to see what real solitary confinement is like, and how damaging it can be, you can watch The Ghost Train here (bearing in mind it was made over 35 years ago):